JP7531014B2 - System and method for automatically suspending poultry from a carrier on a transport conveyor - Patents.com - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a system and method for automatically suspending poultry.

Patent Document 1 discloses a system and method for placing poultry in boxes and transporting them on a conveyor towards a nitrogen gas chamber. The culled chickens are transported from the gas chamber by an exit conveyor to a hanging chicken placement stand. At the chicken placement stand, the culled chickens are monitored by a camera. The camera obtains images of the chickens' condition, allowing the chickens to be automatically hung on a hanger conveyor of an automated chicken processing line using a robot and loading/unloading equipment.

US Patent No. 5,399,633 discloses an apparatus for suspending birds, including their bodies, necks, legs, and possibly heads and feet, on an overhead conveyor. The apparatus includes:
- a plurality of holders having neck ends suitable for receiving the neck of a bird and a first opening through which the legs and/or feet of the bird can protrude; - a monitoring station for determining the orientation of the legs and/or feet of each bird; - a rotation station for rotating the bird about an axis of rotation extending between a plane defined by the first openings of the holders and a plane defined by the neck ends of the holders.

The device of the '693 patent makes it possible to carry out a method for suspending birds by their bodies, necks, legs and possibly heads and feet from an overhead conveyor, the method comprising the following series of steps:
A) each bird is placed in a holder with its legs and/or feet protruding from a first opening in the holder and its neck located at the neck end of the holder; B) an orientation of the legs and/or feet is determined; C) the bird is rotated about an axis of rotation located between a plane defined by the first opening of the holder and a plane defined by the neck end of the holder until the legs and/or feet reach a predetermined orientation; and D) the legs and/or feet of the bird are placed in shackles on the conveyor.

US Patent No. 5,399, 333 teaches that in the field of pig slaughterhouses, it is common to hang pieces of meat on a specific means of transport, usually called a "Christmas tree", for transport and/or storage inside or outside. This Christmas tree essentially has a number of hooks attached to a vertical rod. This rod is adapted to be hung from an overhanging rail or to be attached to a stand, forming a means for collecting and transporting the meat products.

In pig slaughterhouses, when processing the front end, belly, etc. of the pig, it is customary to separate these meats into different weight classes. This requires that the starting product be separated into different product lines (holding areas), stored, and await further processing.

US Patent No. 5,399,633 proposes a system and process for avoiding the heavy manual labor associated with suspending large, heavy pork pieces, for example, on racks for storage and/or transport of the goods. US Patent No. 5,399,633 thus teaches a pork processing system configured to move and suspend one or more pork products from an inlet conveyor to a means for storage and/or transport of the pork products. The system includes:
one or more processing means;
an entrance conveyor belt for transporting and delivering the pork products to the arrival area;
a sensor located at or within an operating distance of the arrival area for detecting arrival of pork products at the arrival area;
a processing means configured to operate together with the inlet conveyor belt, said sensor and one or more industrial robots and/or storage/transport means;
The system further comprises:
means for rotating the rod to determine the exact location of the arriving pork product and to determine the location of the appropriate gripping point on the pork product;
a gripping tool mounted on the industrial robot and capable of picking, gripping, pinching or holding the arriving pork products during the movement of the pork products, and lifting them off the conveyor and ultimately hanging them on a storage/transport means;
The storage/transport means comprises a number of upwardly pointing hooks for receiving pork products to be stored/transported, the hooks being attached to a vertical rod operatively connected to a means for rotating the rod so as to bring the hooks into position to receive pork products delivered by a gripping tool mounted on an industrial robot.

US Patent No. 5,999,943 discloses a system and method for automatically suspending poultry by its legs from a carrier of a carrier conveyor. The system includes a feed line for suspended poultry. The system includes an imaging device connected to a decision tool. The decision tool processes an image of the poultry on the feed line from the imaging device. The system further includes a vision-guided robot. The vision-guided robot picks up the poultry from the feed line and suspends the poultry by its legs to a carrier of the carrier conveyor. The system includes a system for determining the orientation of the poultry, a system for changing the orientation of the poultry, an orientation determination passing system, and a system for shackling the poultry. The system robotically inserts the poultry into the poultry shackle using a plurality of vision-guided robots arranged in series and a tool having three-axis rotation capability and a contour that matches the contour of a poultry breast.

JP 2005-245348 A International Publication No. 2014/040604 International Publication No. 2020/126893 U.S. Patent No. 10,881,115

A significant drawback of the known system and method of this patent, US Pat. No. 5,399,633 for automatically suspending poultry from carriers on a carrier conveyor, is that it requires a lot of equipment to implement, is expensive, complex and prone to failure.

The object of the present invention is to reduce costs, improve reliability, and simplify and reduce the complexity of a system and its method of operation for automatically suspending poultry from a carrier on a transport conveyor.

According to the present invention, a system and a method are proposed according to the accompanying claims. The system and the method are also directed to a computer, a computer program and a recording medium having such a computer program recorded thereon, for supporting the method and the system of the present invention.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, in a system for automatically suspending poultry by its legs from a carrier of a carrier conveyor as described in the preamble of claim 1, a decision tool is configured to detect and select poultry with their breasts hung on a feed line and to control a vision-guided robot to pick up the selected poultry from the feed line by hanging it by its legs and subsequently suspend the poultry by its legs from a carrier of the carrier conveyor.

In a related aspect of the invention, the decision tool detects and selects poultry with parts other than the breast hanging on the feed line and controls the visually guided robot to move the selected poultry so that the breast hangs on the feed line, and the decision tool then controls the visually guided robot to pick up the selected poultry from the feed line by hanging its legs and then suspend the poultry by its legs from a carrier on a carrier conveyor.

The present invention has the advantage that by hanging the poultry by its legs only when its breast is hanging on the feed line, the position of the legs is clear as the legs are always on the feed line, and there is no need to detect the height of the legs. The present invention further makes it possible to avoid the complex pass/fail systems required in the prior art systems and methods and improve the reliability achieved in the process of picking up the poultry from the feed line and then hanging the poultry by its legs on the conveyor line without compromise.

In accordance with the present invention, the following is claimed:
- taking images of poultry on the supply line;
- processing the images to detect and select poultry with their breasts hanging on the feeding line;
- controlling the vision-guided robot to hang the legs of a selected poultry and pick it up from the feed line, and - controlling the vision-guided robot to suspend the poultry by its legs from a carrier on the carrier conveyor.
Therefore, if a poultry is detected with a part other than the breast hanging in the feedline, the following steps are preferably carried out.
- controlling a vision-guided robot to move the selected poultry so that its breast is hanging on a feeding line;
- The vision-guided robot is then controlled to hang the selected poultry by its legs and suspend the poultry by its legs from the carriers on the carrier conveyor.

Preferably, at least the steps of processing the poultry images and/or controlling the visually guided robot are performed using a computer, although this is not necessarily the only possible implementation method. Correspondingly, the invention is also embodied in a computer program which, when loaded into a computer, configures the computer to support the system of the invention and its operating method. Exclusive rights are also claimed for a computer readable medium on which the computer program of the invention is stored.

To allow for high speed processing of large volumes of poultry, the feeding line is preferably equipped with a feeding station that delivers multiple poultry to the feeding line in an unordered order. Of course, it is also possible for the feeding line to receive the poultry in an ordered order. This reduces the burden of properly orienting the poultry after they have been picked up from the feeding line by the vision-guided robot and before the vision-guided robot suspends the poultry from the appropriate carrier on the carrier conveyor.

The feeding station is designed to receive poultry either individually or in box-like containers.

Preferably, the feeding station is configured to deliver the poultry from the containers through a transport section to the feeding line, the transport section comprising guide channels for feeding the poultry in separate rows or moving rows to the feeding line. This prevents adjacent rows of poultry from touching each other, making it easier to photograph individual poultry and assisting a vision-guided robot in picking up the poultry from the feeding line. Ultimately, it is preferable that adjacent poultry do not touch each other on the feeding line.

It is a beneficial feature of the present invention that the decision tool controls the vision-guided robot to pick up poultry from the feed line in a hanging orientation. This is particularly beneficial due to the non-organized sequence in which the feeding stations deliver poultry to the feed line. The decision tool can then control the vision-guided robot to hang the picked poultry by its legs in a predetermined orientation relative to a carrier on the carrier conveyor.

It is therefore desirable to have a vision-guided robot pick up the poultry from a feeding line, collect images of the poultry while it is hanging from the vision-guided robot, and control the vision-guided robot based on the images of the hanging poultry. The images are provided by an imaging device.

The reliability of the control of the visually guided robot can be improved by arranging at least one imaging device to be mounted on the visually guided robot. However, this is not essential and the image processing device may be a separate device located next to the visually guided robot.

Although the system of the present invention allows the poultry to be hung in any orientation, the predetermined hanging orientation of the poultry is preferably with the poultry's breast facing the carrier or with the poultry's breast facing away from the carrier. For all practical purposes, these options can accommodate most situations in a poultry processing plant. The variety is preferably achieved by configuring the decision tool to select the predetermined orientation of the poultry depending on the type of carrier conveyor on which the poultry is hung. In most embodiments, the poultry is picked up and hung on the carrier with the breast facing the carrier. This applies in particular to buffer stations.

Preferably, the orientation of the thorax is determined by detecting a salient feature of the poultry, such as the beak.

FIG. 2 shows a supply station and supply lines forming part of the system according to the invention; 1 shows a system of the present invention with a feeding line, a vision-guided robot, and a carrier conveyor: Poultry are fed into the feeding line with the breast hanging on the feeding line. 1 shows a system of the present invention with a feeding line, a vision-guided robot, and a carrier conveyor: Poultry are fed into the feeding line with the breast hanging on the feeding line. FIG. 1 shows the system of the present invention with poultry hung on the feeding line on their backs. FIG. 1 shows the system of the present invention in a situation where poultry are hung on the feeding line by their breasts.

The present invention will now be further elucidated with reference to the drawings of exemplary embodiments of the system according to the present invention, which are not limiting with respect to the scope of the appended claims.

When the same symbols are used in the figures, they refer to the same parts.

The present invention relates to a system and method for automatically suspending poultry on carriers of a transport conveyor. The system consists of several parts, in particular in FIG. 1 a poultry supply line 1 is shown with a poultry supply station 3. Furthermore, the system comprises a visually guided robot 4 and a carrier conveyor 5, which are shown in FIGS. 2 and 3. The carrier conveyor 5 comprises a series of carriers 6, only one of which is shown. The carriers 6 are movable in the conveying direction of the carrier conveyor 5 in a manner perfectly known to the person skilled in the art. Therefore, no further explanation is required.

The supply line 1 receives the poultry 8 from the supply station 3. The supply station 3 receives the poultry 8, for example, one at a time or in a container 7, and if received in a container 7, releases the poultry 8 from the container 7 into the supply line 1. Thus, the supply line 1 can receive multiple poultry 8 in a non-orderly order, preferably such that adjacent poultry received at the supply line 1 do not come into contact with each other.

The feeding station 3 comprises a transport section 9 for feeding the poultry 8 discharged from the box-like containers 7 towards the feeding line 1. The transport section 9 comprises guide channels 10 for feeding the poultry 8 to the feeding line 1 in separate rows or moving rows of poultry.

For clarity, only the feeding line 1 is shown in Figs. 2-5, but Figs. 2 and 5 show the poultry 8 being fed towards the visually guided robot 4 with its thorax 8' hanging on the feeding line 1. Fig. 4 depicts the situation where the poultry 8 hangs on the feeding line 1 with its back while approaching the visually guided robot 4. In this latter situation, which can be detected by the imaging device 11, the decision tool 12 controls the visually guided robot 4 to move the poultry 8 so that its thorax 8' ends up hanging on the feeding line 1, as shown in Figs. 2 and 5.

When the poultry 8 hangs on the feed line 1 by its breast 8', the decision tool 12 controls the vision-guided robot 4 to pick up the poultry 8, which would otherwise be in any orientation, by hanging its legs 8''. It then controls the vision-guided robot 4 to suspend the poultry 8 by its legs 8'' from a carrier 6 of the carrier conveyor 5. Since the poultry's legs 8'' are always on the feed line 1, the position of the legs 8'' when the poultry 8 hangs on the feed line 1 is well-defined. Figure 3 illustrates that the vision-guided robot 4 can suspend the poultry by its legs 8'' from a carrier 6 in a predefined orientation relative to the carrier 6.

The decision tool 12 controls the visually guided robot 4 based on an image of the poultry 8. This image is obtained by a freestanding imaging device 11 (see FIG. 2) or an imaging device 13 (see FIG. 3) mounted on the visually guided robot 4.

The predetermined orientation of the suspended poultry 8 is either one in which the poultry's breast 8' faces towards the carrier 6 or one in which the poultry's breast 8' faces away from the carrier 6. A first option is shown in FIG. 3. Preferably, the orientation of the breast 8' is determined by detecting a salient feature of the poultry 8, such as the head, and in particular the beak. The determination tool 12 is typically configured to select the predetermined orientation of the poultry 8 depending on the type of carrier conveyor 6 on which the poultry 8 is suspended or is to be suspended.

Returning to FIG. 2, the imaging device 11 is shown as a freestanding device next to the vision-guided robot 4. In many embodiments, it is desired to provide the imaging device 11 with a tracking function to track the poultry 8 after it has been picked up by the vision-guided robot 4. Another option is to use a further imaging device 13, preferably mounted on the vision-guided robot 4, as depicted in FIG. 3. This can be particularly advantageous in controlling the movement of the vision-guided robot 4 in order to ensure that the poultry 8 is accurately suspended by its legs 8'' onto the appropriate carrier 6 on the carrier conveyor 5.

The embodiments of the present invention may include any combination of the features disclosed herein independently of each other. Although the present invention has been discussed above with reference to an exemplary embodiment of the method of the present invention, the present invention is not limited to this particular embodiment, which may be varied in many ways without departing from the present invention. Therefore, the described exemplary embodiment shall not be used to strictly interpret the appended claims accordingly. On the contrary, this embodiment is merely for illustrating the wording of the appended claims, and is not intended to limit the scope of the claims to this exemplary embodiment. Therefore, the scope of protection of the present invention shall be interpreted solely according to the appended claims, and possible ambiguities in the wording of the claims shall be resolved using this exemplary embodiment.

Variations and modifications of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art, and it is intended that the appended claims encompass all such modifications and equivalents. Unless specifically described above as "essential," none of the various components or their interrelationships are essential to the present invention. Rather, desired results may be achieved by substituting the various components and/or rearranging their interrelationships.

Optionally, embodiments of the present invention may include a general-purpose or special-purpose computer or distributed system programmed with computer software implementing the steps described above. The computer software may be any suitable computer language, including C++, FORTRAN, ALGOL, BASIC, Java, Python, Linux, assembly language, microcode, distributed programming languages, and the like. The apparatus of the present invention may include a plurality of such computers/distributed systems (e.g., connected via the Internet and/or one or more intranets) in various hardware implementations. For example, data processing may be performed by a suitably programmed microprocessor, computing cloud, application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), field programmable gate array (FPGA), and the like, in conjunction with suitable memory elements, network elements, bus elements. One or more processors and/or microcontrollers can operate via instructions in computer code, the software preferably being stored in one or more tangible non-transitive memory-storage devices.

Claims (21)

A system for automatically suspending poultry (8) by its legs (8'') from a carrier (6) of a carrier conveyor (5), comprising a feed line (1) for the poultry (8) to be suspended, the system having an imaging device (11, 13) connected to a decision tool (12) and adapted to process images received from the poultry (8) on the feed line (1), and a vision-guided robot (4) for picking up the poultry (8) from the feed line (1) and suspending the poultry (8) by its legs (8'') from the carrier (6) of the carrier conveyor (5),
The system is characterized in that the decision tool (12) is configured to detect and select the poultry (8) with its breast (8') hung on the feeding line (1) and control the vision-guided robot (4) to pick up the selected poultry (8) from the feeding line (1) by hanging its legs (8'') and subsequently suspend the poultry (8) by its legs (8'') from the carriers (6) of the carrier conveyor (5). The system according to claim 1, characterized in that the decision tool (12) detects and selects poultry (8) whose parts other than their breasts (8') are hanging on the supply line (1) and controls the visually guided robot (4) to move the selected poultry (8) so that its breasts (8') are hanging on the supply line (1), and the decision tool (12) then controls the visually guided robot (4) to pick up the selected poultry (8) from the supply line (1) by hanging its legs (8''), and subsequently suspend the poultry (8) by its legs (8'') from the carriers (6) of the carrier conveyor (5). The system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the supply line (1) is provided with a supply station (3) which delivers a number of poultry (8) to the supply line (1) in a random order. The system according to claim 3, characterized in that the supply station (3) is adapted to receive the poultry (8) either individually or in box-like containers (7). The system according to claim 4, characterized in that the feeding station (3) is configured to deliver the poultry (8) from the container (7) through a transfer section (9) to the feeding line (1), the transfer section (9) comprising guide channels (10) for feeding the poultry (8) to the feeding line (1) in separate rows or moving rows of poultry, so that adjacent poultry (8) received in the feeding line (1) do not come into contact with each other. The system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the decision tool (12) controls the vision-guided robot (4) to pick up the poultry (8) from the supply line (1) by the vision-guided robot (4) in a random orientation. The system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the decision tool (12) controls the vision-guided robot (4) to suspend the picked poultry (8) by its legs (8'') in a predefined orientation relative to the carriers (6) of the carrier conveyor (5). The system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the decision tool (12) controls the visually guided robot (4) based on images of the poultry (8) output from the imaging device (11, 13). The system according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the imaging device (13) is mounted on the visually guided robot (4). The system according to claim 7, characterized in that the predetermined orientation of the poultry (8) is either an orientation in which the poultry's breast (8') faces the carrier (6) or an orientation in which the poultry's breast (8') faces away from the carrier (6). The system according to claim 10, characterized in that the orientation of the thorax (8') is determined by detecting a salient feature of the poultry (8), such as a beak. 8. The system according to claim 7, characterized in that the decision tool (12) is adapted to select a predefined orientation of the poultry (8) depending on the type of carrier conveyor (5) on which the poultry (8) is or will be suspended. A method for automatically suspending poultry (8) on a carrier (6) of a carrier conveyor (5), comprising the steps of:
- feeding the poultry (8) on the feeding line (1) towards the vision-guided robot (4);
- taking images of the poultry (8) on the feeding line (1),
- picking up poultry (8) from the feeding line (1) by a vision-guided robot (4),
- by a vision-guided robot (4) suspending the poultry (8) by its legs (8'') from a carrier (6) of a carrier conveyor (5),
- processing said images to detect and select poultry (8) whose breast (8') is hanging on the feeding line (1);
- controlling a vision-guided robot (4) to hang and pick up the legs (8'') of the selected poultry (8) from the feeding line (1);
- A method comprising controlling a vision-guided robot (4) to suspend a poultry (8) by its legs (8'') from a carrier (6) of a carrier conveyor (5). - processing the images to detect and select poultry (8) having parts other than their breast (8') hanging on the feeding line (1);
- controlling a vision-guided robot (4) to move the selected poultry (8) so that its breast (8') is hanging on the feeding line (1);
- thereafter controlling a vision-guided robot (4) to hang the selected poultry (8) by its legs (8'') and to suspend the poultry (8) by its legs (8'') from a carrier (6) of the carrier conveyor (5). The method according to claim 13 or 14, characterized in that a plurality of poultry (8) are fed into the feed line (1) in a random order, such that adjacent poultry (8) fed into the feed line (1) do not come into contact with each other. The method according to claim 13 or 14, characterized in that the visually guided robot (4) is controlled to pick up the poultry (8) from the supply line (1) by hanging it on the visually guided robot (4) in any orientation. The method according to claim 13 or 14, characterized in that the visually guided robot (4) is controlled to suspend the picked-up poultry (8) by its legs (8'') in a predefined orientation relative to the carrier (6) of the carrier conveyor (5). 18. The method according to claim 17, characterized in that the predetermined orientation is selected from the group consisting of a first orientation in which the breast (8') of the poultry (8) faces the carrier (6) and a second orientation in which the breast (8') of the poultry (8) faces away from the carrier (6). The method according to claim 13 or 14, characterized in that at least one of the steps of processing the image of the poultry (8) and controlling the vision-guided robot (4) is performed by a computer. A computer program which, when loaded into a computer forming part of the system according to claim 1 , causes the computer to carry out the method according to claim 13. A computer-readable medium comprising the computer program of claim 20.